I have discovered over the years that one of the things that turns me on most in my visual environment is accidental composition: the unplanned conjunction of elements into a grouping that has balance, energy and meaning. I find this in nature in abundance, but also in the works of man gathered together at random, or changed by alterations or decay over time. What results is composition which takes me beyond the familiar rules into new possibilities.

Historically, I find this same fascination in Impressionists like Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. With the aid of candid photography, which created arbitrary slices of the world, they revolutionized the way artists could think about composition in painting. Degas' "Cotton Exchange" is a good example of the new vision: it shows a collection of people with no other connection than to be accidentally in the same place at the same time. There are visual pairs in close proximity but without any spychological or functional relationship. If we compare this with David's "Oath of the Horatii", we can grasp the magnitude of the change in vision.

I should make a distinction here: not all "found" composition is accidental composition. Nature is full of examples of composition which, though it may not have been created primarily for aesthitic reasons, is nevertheless driven by a strong inner logic. Crystals, snowflakes, flower blossoms,trees, even volcanoes are examples of this. Their form and composition is driven by logical imperatives as surely as a suspension bridge, a bicycle wheel or a highway cloverleaf.

I also should say that not all accident succeeds as composition. A great deal of what we find in nature is simply chaotic, with no organizing principle that allows us to make sense of it. For the rest, we will always need to see and extract the compositional possibilites; they are seldom given to us without effort. But even if we organize it to make visual sense, the accidental composition will always present elements that are new to us, teaching us things we wouldn't have thought of through pure invention.

I have recently returned to doing millscapes: views of the mill complex which houses my studio and artists' community. The millscapes combine the progressive alteration of the buildings over time, the accidental conjunction of several elements when seen from a particular viewpoint, and a special richness given by aging and decay. My other concentration has been rockfaces, a surprisingly similar blend of logical structure and accidental decay. I'm am just beginning to understand why these two seemingly different subjects have the same attraction for me.